The Design Blog

In my last post I made a list of things I wanted to achieve this year – I’ve been working hard at sticking to it! I’ve done two market stalls over the past two months and I have two more coming up next week. It’s always hard to know what your audience will be like and whether or not the day will be worth it. My last art fair, ‘Realms of Rummage’ at The Cookie in Leicester was a really positive experience for me, full of lovely people taking an interest in my work, and yet my previous stall in Stourbridge had not been anywhere near as successful. Anything could happen and it’s always a good learning experience.

From my last stall, I learnt that pink was the most popular colour within my hand-painted earrings. I have taken this on board and will be stocking up on my pink designs! I also trialled out my newly-made necklaces for the first time and these seemed to be a success. I’ll be doing more and more designs as soon as possible.

Other newly-made products are my printed birthday cards and coasters. I’m excited to have designed cards digitally for the first time and I’m planning to create a whole collection for different occasions which will hopefully be sold in independent design shops. Recent work examples:

One month into 2017 already. It’s been two years since I was working on my final project at university – that’s insane. I always use the turn of a new year as a good excuse to set myself work goals and push myself even more.

Things to achieve…

New pattern designs

Start creating necklaces

Bigger range of printed products

Start selling to design/independent shops

Do more art/craft fairs and markets

Increase sales on Etsy

Increase followers on Instagram

Start blogging more often!

Over the past month, I’ve made sure to start designing patterns again – it had been so long! My current inspiration is coming from many photographs I took during two internships in London. For one, I was working on an old industrial estate near Wembley Stadium and I found so many interesting parts of buildings to photograph on a daily basis. I’ve also been enjoying creating new earring designs, which will eventually all be added to Etsy. Here’s a few things I’ve done so far:

I was recently approached and given the opportunity to start selling my work through People of Print’s curated online store, Department Store. Seeing as I’m such a big fan of the company, I obviously jumped at the chance. You can also find me listed on People of Print’s online directory page.

I thought this would be the perfect time for me to have some art prints created, which I’d been wanting to do for so long now. I picked 10 of my favourite designs which I thought would translate well into A4 prints to be framed for walls. Within the 10 designs, they have been organised into 3 collections which would work well placed next to each other.

Two months of not even getting through to the interview stage for just about every part-time job I applied for, I finally managed to get an interview at Oliver Bonas, Birmingham, and it was the best interview process I’ve ever had. They were genuinely interested in me and my life (and my design work). It just goes to show, I’m not completely useless, I was just applying to all the wrong places. So, I’m now working at my favourite store – my dream company to design for!

If you don’t know anything about Oliver Bonas, you should. I only just discovered them this summer but they’ve been massively expanding as a company over the past few years. As they have their own in-house design team, there’s a big focus on forward-thinking design and their products are all unique to the store. There’s a definite style to their name, setting them apart from other high-street stores. Geometric shapes are a common recurring theme amongst all their products, ranging from fashion to furniture. I can also see Scandinavian and mid-century modern design influences within their ranges (which of course suits me well).

Their jewellery is what stands out to me the most; I was amazed to find somewhere on the high-street that sells such similar pieces to my own! Here’s some of my favourite and most inspiring current items at the store (I do not hold the copyright to any of these images, see more at oliverbonas.com):

Oh hello. Yes, I’ve forgotten to update this blog again for quite some time. Recently I’ve been cracking on with internships, lots and lots of jewellery work, some new fabric products, handmade cards, decorations and trying to get myself a new day job! But a recent fun little thing I did was creating some A7 zines for Tiny Library, a project ran by ‘Ventral Is Golden’, where artists/designers are invited to send work off to be put together into a collection of mini pieces – these are transported to various places in Europe and the work will find new homes. The collections are carried around in cassette carry cases and placed in different locations.

I thought this would be something nice and different to do, especially as I’d never made a zine before. So I just decided to make a small collection of five zines with leftover paper scraps of my patterns. Each double page spread is colour-coordinated in each booklet. This was a good chance to explore colour and composition. And I like the idea of someone in a different country picking up my work!

You can read more about Tiny Library and its other contributors at tinylibrary.eu (I do not hold the copyright to any of these images).

Finally found a bit of free time to update the old blog. The past few months have been very strange. I’ve moved away from the little Cornish town which has made me feel so at home for the past 4 years, and now I’m back in my dreaded hometown in The Midlands. But still, with absolutely nothing going on in this town, I’ll be able to devote a lot of time to creativity!

Before moving, I started a new lil business venture with jewellery making – there’s so many different routes I want to go down with art and design. I’d already been making decorations from laser-cut wooden shapes, then I realised I could start making earrings in a similar way. Although with the jewellery, I decided I’d like to try hand-painting the shapes, rather than using my existing printed patterns. This process can take hours, painting layer after layer, but I love the texture it gives. The designs are each made up of geometric shapes. I then add a few layers of varnish to protect the paint. I’m soon going to try making stud earrings and eventually necklaces.

I thought it was about time I wrote about my favourite design duo. Based in France, Atelier Bingo consist of Maxime Prou & Adèle Favreau; they both share a passion for illustration, surface pattern design and graphic arts. To me, their designs are the most fun and distinct out of any other contemporary design studios around at the moment. They began with just specialising in screen-printed posters, combining different media such as collage, gouache paint, inks and pens, to create beautifully bright and playful compositions. Their signature style is using roughly cut-out shapes, collaged in seemingly random placements, with vibrant colour palettes. Mark making techniques are also commonly used. I would happily fill all the walls of my house with their designs.

They are consistently growing as a company, working on many new types of projects such as rugs, stationery and gift wrap designs, and rising in popularity. Through the wonderful world of Instagram, I’ve noticed how influential they’re becoming on many other designers’ work (including my own). When I look at their work, all I can think about is how brave they are to be able to freely put together all these uneven shapes and contrasting colours. You can tell that they just have fun creating it. I wish I was able to be this brave with my work without worrying about whether it will look messy! As an exercise, I’m going to do some mark making and create some quick collages of shapes, without putting too much thought into it.